French Twist: An American Mom's Experiment in Parisian Parenting [Paperback]

Adventures in Franco-inspired American parenting—a winning mix of witty cross-cultural observation, hilariously blunt French wisdom, and one American mom’s journey to create her own hybrid parenting approach
 
“If there is no blood, don’t get up.” This single nugget of parenting gold, offered by a French friend at the end of a long dinner party, changed everything for writer Catherine Crawford, her husband, and, especially, the couple’s two young daughters. Crawford immediately began to see that while the United States had become the land of too-involved parents forever wanting to talk through their kids’ feelings about, well, everything, France employed a far morelaissez-faireattitude toward raisingles enfants. Learning to sleep through the night? A few tears never hurt anyone. Food? Let them eat cake, sure, but onlyafterthey’ve sampled lamb chops, broccoli rabe, and the stinkiest of cheeses.
 
Short of shipping her daughters off to Paris for these—and many other—invaluable early-life lessons, Crawford did the next best thing: She brought Old World–style parenting to Brooklyn. In the process, she discovered that her kids could actually hold a thought silently for two minutes without interrupting adult conversation, and that she didn’t, in fact, need to buy out half the toy store to make their birthdays special. She even found out how much her kids like lamb chops! While combining the best attributes of the approachfrançaiswith what she saw as American qualities worth preserving, Crawford found a way to save her householdandher sanity. Hilarious and insightful,French Twistreveals how Crawford and her family survivedle grand experiment—and why they aren’t ever going back to the way things were.

Advance praise forFrench Twist

“Presented with a touch of humor and spot-olc1